The Twilight TwentyFive
by emavalexis
Summary: A series of 25 drabbles consisting of exactly 100 words or one-shots, written for LiveJournal's thetwilight25 community challenge. Ratings and characters/pairings will vary.
1. Mirror

**The Twilight Twenty-Five  
Prompt: **Mirror**  
Pen name: **en-glace**  
Pairing: **Edward/Bella**  
Rating: **T

She's idle when he first touches her, fingertips alighting upon the marble-smooth landscape of her new body. His hands say everything he cannot, articulating the depth of his adoration for everything she was, is, and has yet to become.

They watch each other in silence and he marvels at the ways in which they are now so very similar. His index finger traces a path between her breasts, sparking warmth where once she would have shivered at the coldness of his touch. Their smiles mimic each other's.

_This is what she meant by becoming equals_, he thinks, understanding at last.

**This is my first drabble written for the Twilight Twenty-Five challenge on LiveJournal (****http://community(DOT)livejournal(DOT)com/thetwilight25/profile****). The turnout thus far is nothing short of fantastic, with a lot of really great drabbles and one-shots already posted. Be sure to check them out!**

**I've been suffering writer's block for such a long time, so this is a perfect way for me to try to get back into the swing of things. Writing 25 drabbles or one-shots in three months is totally doable, I think – wish me luck.**


	2. Light

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt:** Light  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Edward/Bella  
**Rating:** K

The rare appearance of strong early-morning sun breaks through as she sets pen to paper. She's been trying to write this letter for months now – and the sunlight is a strangely appropriate reminder of all she needs to _not _say.

'You're beautiful.'

Edward's voice is a distracting caress; any other time she would welcome it, the comfort of vanity his words afford. But she needs other words now. She owes her father the lie of her mediocrity, the girl she once was.

Charlie wouldn't find the diamond landscape of her skin in the sun fascinating; he'd be heartbroken by it.


	3. Sour

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Sour  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Rosalie, Bella, Edward)  
**Rating:** T

Were Rosalie still human (in another lifetime, in another place), Bella thinks she'd be a movie star. The deceptively wholesome kind behind closed doors, masquerading for years under layers of false lashes, casting couches, and the promise of sex and sin – only to turn around and embrace motherhood like they invented the damn concept.

Edward's agreement is sour; he's as mistrusting as ever when it comes to the blonde thorn in his side. He interprets every stolen glance she directs toward his daughter as a personal affront, considers it evidence she would readily assume guardianship if only the opportunity arose.


	4. Juvenile

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Juvenile  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Edward/Bella  
**Rating:** K

'This is ridiculous,' Edward scoffs dismissively, a scowl marring the smoothness of his brow. 'Must Hollywood turn everything about vampires into a collection of lies and exaggerations?'

Bella looks sideways at him. If she's become accustomed to the occasional airing of his petty world grievances, the passion with which he divulges them surprises her still, even after all these years. The Edward she knew before marriage, before her transformation, always seemed so maddeningly composed.

'Isn't it better that humans believe those lies?' she asks lightly, suppressing laughter when his icy gaze meets hers. She can't help enjoying his temper tantrums.


	5. Plea

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Plea  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Bella)  
**Rating:** K+

Autumn was a blur and winter soon came to scour the sunlight entirely from the sky. Without him, without _me_, there was nothing left for the shadows to cling to. My loneliness lay endlessly before me in the murk.

I whispered and wished and lost everything all over again. Every day I died and every night I prayed I would stay that way. Or better yet, to be the never-born. The never-lost, the never-hurt. The never-loved.

'It'll be as if I never existed,' he told me.

I wondered if he knew that in denying his existence, he'd be denying mine.


	6. Heart

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Heart  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Edward/Bella  
**Rating:** M

Edward dies and is reborn three days later, but unlike Jesus, he is no messiah.

He runs and ruts like the newborn vampire he is, his maker (his _father_) ever-present, watching and guiding. Carlisle tries to drive the monster from him in the best way he knows how – but his benevolent nature makes unintentional folly of Edward's grief.

Edward longs for damnation, not absolution.

*~*~*~*~*

The hurt, the defeat in Carlisle's gaze doesn't surprise him; it's the anger that steals unnecessary breath from Edward's lungs and punctuates the silence more effectively than words ever could.

'Why, Edward? You've been… you've done so well, adapted to this lifestyle with such ease. I…'

The words trickle off and he's grateful for it. He knows without having to listen to Carlisle's thoughts that his father has finally come to the realization that a decade of drinking the blood of animals has brought him no closer to his lost humanity. How could it? He's still a monster, after all.

'You cannot keep me tethered to your side forever,' he chokes out, unable to look Carlisle in the eye now that his declaration has been made. 'You'll make due without me, you and Esme-'

'This will break her heart.'

He suspects it's the closest Carlisle will ever come to bribery, emotional or otherwise. He takes his leave then, without another word, without any further acknowledgment. If he stays, he might never regain his nerve.

*~*~*~*~*

The girls ahead of him in the street chatter excitedly about which Beatle is their favorite.

A volley of giggles as they argue the merits of each – Paul's bawdy sense of humor, George's brooding silence, Ringo's accent. Their collective scents are an almost overpowering cloud of bubblegum, Avon lipstick, pressed powder. That terrible invention known as hairspray. And yet above it all – the sweetness of their blood. Innocence doesn't affect the taste of it, of course, but sometimes he likes to pretend it does.

'John's my favorite,' the quietest one pipes up. Her thoughts are a distracted jumble, a potent mixture of disinterest and desire. She wants to fit in but sees herself as an outsider, always. 'He's a poet, you can tell,' she continues.

_I wonder if he writes for someone special_, she muses, losing herself in romantic fantasies of a future that will never come to pass.

Later on, he almost feels sad as the life fades from her eyes. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Somehow he'd expected her blood to taste better, but it was the same as anyone else's.

He lowers his head to whisper in her ear.

'"I thought you were a lady,"/I giggle, - well I may,/To my surprise the lady,/got up – and flew away.'

*~*~*~*~*

He's technically 85 years old the year _Hip To Be Square_ tops the charts, not that one would know it to look at him – permanently frozen, as it were, in the guise of his 17 year old (and very human) former self. By the time he reads American Psycho, he wonders if his powers of stealth have been slipping. It's fucking eerie how closely the events in the book mirror his own poor excuse for an existence during the narcissistic void of the 80s.

Patrick Bateman eats people. So, too, does he; after a fashion.

But no matter that he's tried plenty – drugs have never had the slightest influence on his vampire constitution.

*~*~*~*~*

'I cannot have you here like… _this_, you understand.' Carlisle's words are a rush of pained insistence. 'No matter how I may wish otherwise in my heart of hearts.'

Edward shakes his head, distracted again from answering by the little, dark-haired one who watches their exchange with an inexplicable smile on her face.

_It will be all right. You can tell him I say so_, she thinks at him, her lips curling back in delight. He stares at her in disbelief. The part of him that only just met her knows she can't possibly know anything about him, including his future. But there's something about this one that makes him trust her, that makes him want to believe.

Carlisle's gaze narrows. 'Alice?'

'I was simply telling him that it will work out,' she answers, brightly. 'He'll be ready for school again by the time we relocate.'

His father turns back to him, a nervous but hopeful smile forming on his own lips.

*~*~*~*~*

He drains three deer and a mountain lion (his favorite, the closest he thinks he will ever get to human blood again, even if it's still a poor facsimile) on the last night of the spring term break. Something has changed in the air, sparking his nerve endings with some intangible foreboding. He fears he's at the very edge of something, a shift in the meaning of what he supposes passes for his life.

'You so antsy for any particular reason?' Jasper settles in beside him, dangling his legs over the side of the cliff. The irony of this unspoken metaphor is not lost on him.

He shakes his head minutely and considers the man he is coming to view as his brother. He feels more comfortable around Jasper than any other member of his family, even Esme, and it has nothing to do with the older vampire's gift. Jasper fed on human blood for decades, too, and struggles still with the ever-present desire for the charade of completion only it can provide.

'Something is coming, I can feel it,' he answers simply, watching a pair of wild jackrabbits travel in fits and starts across the forest floor below.

'Alice hasn't mentioned anything,' Jasper replies, leaving it at that. If only it were that simple.

*~*~*~*~*

This girl – her virtue, her silence, her _blood_.

He has never wanted anything more in his entire existence.

*~*~*~*~*

'You _love_ me?'

Her voice is full of incredulity, the nervous laughter following it like an adze to his heart. He watches as she bites her lower lip in concentration, worrying it with her teeth before suddenly taking a deep breath. She squares her shoulders and turns to face him directly, appearing to steel herself toward some kind of admission of love on her part.

If his heart still beat, it would be thundering madly at this moment.

Her eyes search his.

'Edward, you barely know me.'

He doesn't know how to tell her he knows all about her except for the mystery of her mind. He's been crawling through her bedroom window for months now, watching her sleep, listening to the jumble of thoughts that spill from her lips as she slumbers. He has read every book on her shelf, touched every piece of her clothing, picked up every knick-knack and memento.

He doesn't need to be able to read her mind to know he can tell her none of this right now.

*~*~*~*~*

Bella reaches up, fingering a lock of his hair.

'What are you thinking?' he asks because he has to. His eyelids flutter shut as she trails her fingers down the curve of his brow to caress the slope of his cheek before moving to trace his lips. Her touch is so soft that were he human, he might not even know she was touching him.

Her fingers are sifting through his hair again before she answers.

'I was wondering if this is the same as it was before.' She means his hair, but she could easily mean almost any part of him. She pauses and he opens his eyes, searching hers. 'Does everything just… stay the same?'

'It's the same,' he confirms, dipping in for a kiss, pressing his lips harder to hers than he has yet dared. Her head sinks back further into the pillow, her grip tightening in his hair.

'But your eyes,' she gasps when their mouths break apart at last. 'They're like the others'.'

'They used to be green,' he replies with a nod before claiming her lips once more.

*~*~*~*~*

She is full of questions. So many questions with no end in sight and he wonders if turning her sooner rather than later will help answer some of them for her. There are, after all, some things she will have to learn for herself.

'Bella, please.'

His patience is worn to a thread today; he should have gone hunting. He's hungrier than usual when it snaps.

'Oh, I'm _sorry_, Edward.' The words are the right ones. Her tone, her inflection is not. Her voice drips with sarcasm.

He sighs and crosses the room to her, his hand barely grazing the side of her waist when she pulls away angrily, turning from him to face the wall.

'Don't be like that,' he says through gritted teeth.

She doesn't reply. When nearly half an hour has passed, silence all around, he can't help himself from asking, 'If you're not going to talk to me, why don't you go home?'

Bella turns to him then, shocked hurt in her gaze and his anger over everything – her silence, their distance – coalesces into a desire he can't hold back any longer. He doesn't _want_ to hold back any longer.

They have sex for the first time against his bedroom wall and if Bella has any objections, she doesn't voice them.

*~*~*~*~*

An afternoon like any other of their afternoons these days. He's learned to shut out his family's thoughts about what goes on in his bedroom.

He and Bella vacillate so much between making love and fucking that he's not sure anymore where the difference lies. There's heat and need in every moment they share.

He burns with it.

'I'm ready,' she whispers after she comes. The rhythm of his hips becomes erratic, frenzied, as her words send a rush of whatever passes for adrenaline coursing through his veins, venom pooling in his mouth.

He fucks her hard into the mattress, his teeth breaking through her skin at the same time as his climax.

*~*~*~*~*

Bella is no messiah either, but he thinks she just might be his savior.


	7. Voracious

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Voracious  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Bella, Jane)  
**Rating:** K+

'Bella... Still in possession of that gift of yours?'

The question is absurd, of course (delivered with a crimson-eyed smile). They're vampires, and as such, are not so very prone to the seasons of change endured by the living. A gift's a gift – once bestowed, never to be rescinded.

But like a _real_ child, the little blonde one likes to take what is not hers. That she can't, not really, is incidental. She'll willingly bite off more than she can chew and spit out the damage.

Jane would be the stuff of nightmares if Bella were still capable of dreaming.


	8. Retribution

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Retribution  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Charlie, Edward)  
**Rating:** T

Charlie Swan's first thought upon waking up is, _Bella's not gonna like this. Not in the least. _

Somehow, in a matter of days, his grief has been displaced by a simple, almost unbearable need to see his daughter. He sits up, disoriented, his recent memory a blur of images that make no sense to him. Did he drink too much again in a vain attempt to purge her from his thoughts? It's the only explanation, even as he sits up, gaining his bearings and noticing that the usual fuzziness accompanying a good hangover is not present.

The world tilts again ever so slightly as he gets to his feet and at first it's like everything around him is moving too quickly.

Until he realizes it's _him._

'Interesting. I thought you might be like her, but I can read you the same as ever,' a voice murmurs from a darkened corner of the room. Charlie spins (_too fast_), finding its bearer almost immediately. He narrows his eyes and his gaze sweeps over the mess of bronze hair his son-in-law sports, the impossibly smooth jaw only youth can afford before age brings with it necessity, upkeep.

It takes a lot of effort to age.

Only now, Charlie seems to notice for the first time the individual strands of brown and gold threaded through Edward's hair, the faintest smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose, the palest hint of stubble forever arrested on a seventeen year old boy's face. For the first time, he doesn't think Edward appears to be immovably, unnervingly perfect.

'Son,' he chokes out, trying his best to ignore the fact that he notices all of these things as if he's looking Edward for the first time, as if the room doesn't seem _brighter_ than it should, considering that he knows the lights are out and that the sunlight only hits this corner of the house for two brief periods of the day – dawn and twilight – and it's neither of those now.

Edward chuckles darkly and looks up at him, and _do his eyes look different?_

'I think we both know I'm nowhere near young enough to be your son, Chief Swan.'

And with those words a kind of solid reality sinks in, taking residence in his chest. Irritation curls up his throat and it's like a burning that feels at once inexplicably familiar but wrong. He waits for the erratic thumping of his heartbeat to fill his ears but it's all _silence_ and suddenly every little suspicion he ever had about Edward and the other Cullens seems magnified, seems to be falling into place – and he along with them.

'Where's Bella?' A whisper but he can tell by Edward's expression that the not so young man has heard him perfectly. The tense set of his brow softens.

_He really loves her_, Charlie thinks.

'She's at home. She's fine, I assure you. Perfect, in fact.'

Charlie knows the truth in this. Because Bella _is _perfect now, even if she wasn't always. He'd pretended to himself that it was the illness Carlisle had told him about that had altered her. Wasn't that was Jacob had told him? Yes, it was the mysterious fever she'd supposedly come down with on her honeymoon that had changed her, inside and out – made her seem _harder,_ both newly indestructible and graceful in a way she'd never been before_._

_Before. Before before… before what? No, can't think about that, and Jake, he's a – he changed into a – _No_._

'And Nessie?' he asks, pulling away from his thoughts as if branded by a hot iron. He doesn't want to follow that path right now. He notices the fleeting consternation in his son in law's expression, there and gone so quickly he would have missed it were he not -

He doesn't wait for Edward's response. He's suddenly _thirsty_ and as he realizes that no amount of water or goddamn Vitamin R will do the trick, the burning in his throat crests, and he wants nothing more than to sate this agonizing need. It's almost _unbearable._

'Charlie, we have to go,' Edward says calmly, closer now. 'You need to eat.'

'I'm not hungry.' He knows it's a lie the second the words tumble from his mouth. The reality of this entire situation, the reality of _what he is_, is crashing down on him now. He turns to Edward, his barely controlled rage delivered in a fist of sickness straight to the bastard's useless gut.

'What the fuck did you do to me?'

He wishes he could be surprised to hear himself growl.

'What I had to,' Edward whispers plaintively, his body in a protective crouch in the corner. 'Bella would have never forgiven herself…'

Charlie watches a number of emotions register in Edward's expression before finally settling on indifference. It's a feint; he knows this from seeing the same expression in the mirror every single time Bella shut him out. Every single time she lied about not needing him. It certainly hurt like it was the truth.

Perhaps, he realizes, he and Edward aren't so different after all.


	9. Worship

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Worship  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Bella, Jacob)  
**Rating:** K+

_These violent delights have violent ends. _And so, too, did I. Hollowed-out by love and loss and everything I ever wanted that was greater than myself.

I hold on to the guilt I feel for hurting him once upon a time. It's the only way I can prove it was worth it after all.

Shape-shifter or not, _werewolf_ – none of it's ever mattered to me because Jacob has always been more of a human being than I ever was. He's always known how to put me back together again.

Guilt and grief. These things fall away.

But he never does.


	10. Aesthetic

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Aesthetic  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Carlisle/Esme  
**Rating:** K+

'You can't... Not everything can be _perfect_,' he sighs, afraid to look at her face and see the telltale look of disappointment - of _consternation_ - there. He tolerates it, even if he can't understand it. Even after all of these years together.

Esme values order above all else, and not merely in appearance alone. Perhaps this is why Edward's struggles with Bella affect her so. Anyone who doesn't know her might mistake her for a shallow dilettante with aspirations extending no further than her husband's wallet.

Carlisle knows better. Doesn't mean he likes it, though.

Sometimes he desires a little... disorder.


	11. Awkward

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Awkward  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Edward/Bella  
**Rating:** M

'You have to tell me if I hurt you, the _second _it happens.'

An impatient shuffling of limbs and unsure, if excited repositioning. 'Yeah, yeah. I will.'

'_Bella_.'

'_Edward._'

As if she'd ever be convinced otherwise: 'We're not doing this if you don't take it seriously. One false move and I could _kill you_.'

'I _am_ taking it seriously. We've talked about it enough.'

Then lower, a whisper: 'Just fuck me already.'

Everything's in motion then, if not exactly a smoothly-functioning machine.

'If you'd move ov-'

'A little to the-'

'I don't think it's going to f-'

Together then: '_Oh.'_


	12. Crave

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Crave  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Jacob, Bella)  
**Rating:** T

'You know, sometimes I really miss food,' Bella muses. 'Human food, I mean. So much variety.'

She turns to him with a smile, and he tries to forget the hint of that girl he'll always love best - no matter what he's told her or anyone else.

'But it'd all taste like dirt to you now, Bells.'

The thought of her eating, ice cream pooling stickiness at the corner of her mouth, makes his stomach drop in a strange way.

'Yeah, I guess it would.' She grimaces. Jacob dreams that night of a human Bella licking chocolate sauce off his chest.


	13. Sky

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Sky  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Edward/Bella  
**Rating:** K+

Lying under the infinite spread of blue, you usually contemplate the vastness of the universe and your insignificance in it. There's an entire _elsewhere_ teeming with any number of lives greater than your own, but none greater than that of the girl at your side.

It's impossible to focus on anything but her. Your eyes trace the shape of her lips when she tells you she loves you, and it's in these moments that your need for her threatens to eclipse your steadfast reason.

Like the heavens above, she's as unfathomable as the biggest mystery you've never hoped to solve.


	14. Crusade

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Crusade  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Jasper/Alice  
**Rating:** T

'This is bullshit,' Jasper grumbles, fists jammed beneath his arms. He's barely restraining himself from smashing one of them through the truck's rear window and grabbing the kindly older man whose bum luck it was to pick them up.

He bets he could drain the guy with plenty of time left over to grab the wheel.

'It isn't bullshit, Jasper,' Alice says with a gentle sigh and a reassuring smile. 'You're going to be so much _happier_. We both are.'

'We could get there faster if we ran.'

'Trust me.'

She pries a fist loose and threads their fingers together.


	15. Erosion

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Erosion  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Renesmee, Edward)  
**Rating:** K

I waited for my father to speak. I knew that I'd hurt him, but I was his daughter – and that had to count for something. _Right?_

Besides, it wasn't as if any of this should have come as a surprise. He and Mom both knew what was likely to happen the moment Jacob announced he'd imprinted on me. They'd had years to prepare, to get used to the idea.

My mother would get over it. She was upset, but I knew in an instant that she'd forgive me.

As he stared past me, I couldn't trust that Dad ever would.


	16. Platonic

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Platonic  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Jacob/Bella  
**Rating:** M

The most infuriating thing is the way she tries to push you aside as if you never meant anything to her. As if you didn't share your secret joys and desires or see each other at your worst.

You know the way her skin felt pressed against you, the way her breath hitched when she came

(it was _your_ lips, _your_ tongue, _your_ fingers – not his)

whispering your name with a plea and promising you forever in every way that counted.

Friends, she says, and you want to show _him_ just how much of a temperamental boy you really are.


	17. Vivid

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Vivid  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Bella)  
**Rating:** K+

There are times when Bella Cullen wishes memories faded for vampires as they do for humans. Sure, she's got many she'll be forever grateful for retaining with such stunning clarity – the first time Edward _really _kissed her, her daughter's first word, the birth of each of her grandchildren.

But there are painful memories, too.

Renesmee and Jacob moving far away. Crossing paths with an Angela Cheney she had to pretend she'd never known. The pain in Charlie's face until he relented to the morphine that eased his last breaths.

She supposes Edward knew what he was talking about after all.


	18. Play

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Play  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Emmett, Edward, Renesmee)  
**Rating:** K

'I don't understand. Don't most kids like playing in the mud?'

Emmett balefully watched as Bella spirited his niece to the bathtub upstairs. He was supposed to be the _fun_ one.

Edward clapped him on the shoulder, a look of apology on his face. 'She's not like most children, Em.'

'Yeah. I guess she'd rather play piano like her dad,' Emmett said quietly, shaking Edward's hand off before heading to his room. Nothing would cheer him up, not even Rosalie insisting he'd done nothing wrong.

A tiny knock sounded on his door awhile later. Renesmee laughed and all was forgiven.


	19. Soft

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Soft  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Edward/Bella  
**Rating:** M

'God, that feels good,' he moans. 'Does it feel good for you, too?' A slow, deliberate twist of his hips has her clamping her mouth closed.

He can see the restraint it takes for her to keep quiet, and enjoys the knowledge that she'd be blushing up a storm were she still human. They're at the main house tonight, and with their daughter sleeping down the hall and a manse-full of vampires, the last thing Bella wants is to call attention to what they're doing.

He loves the soft little sounds she can't help but make in spite of herself.


	20. Jealousy

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Jealousy  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Edward/Bella  
**Rating:** T

'I'm sorry,' I whisper faintly. Were the words directed at anyone but Edward, they might be lost in the gentle whooshing sound of the ceiling fan. But of course he hears me just fine.

He sighs.

_I exasperate him_.

I wait the longest time for him to answer. When he doesn't, when he just continues to sit there, looking for all the universe like a fucking _statue_, I blurt out the only thing my addled brain can make sense of, given his silence.

'Are you breaking up with me?'

And _that_ gets a reaction out of him. All furrowed brow under an angry gaze even _he's_ not quick enough to disguise before he modifies. Edward expression carefully softens in that way that annoys me.

'Breaking up with you?' he asks, tersely. His eyes – they're nearly pitch-black. The tiniest thrill of fear and something else goes through me and I clasp my hands together tightly, trapping them between my legs as I stare at my lap and wait for my heart rate to slow.

'You're wondering if I'm breaking up with you?' he elaborates, condescension positively bleeding from him. I glance up at him before quickly directing my gaze back into my lap, cheeks flushing furiously – from embarrassment, from indignation... I wish I could stop that.

His eyes are so dark.

He sighs again when I don't answer. Edward sighs a _lot._

'Bella.'

I snap.

'You've been ignoring me all week and I don't know if you've noticed, Edward, but I don't exactly fit in with everyone else. I just wanted to feel _normal_ for awhile and Jessica was the one who swiped the fucking schnapps and God, so I got drunk and puked on the floor of your precious Volvo. I think you care about that car more than you care about me.' I ramble without taking a breath, cringing and feeling my stomach flip unsettlingly as I think about the way I acted at Tyler's party, the way I flirted shamelessly with Mike and by then Jessica was too drunk herself to notice. And then Edward was _there_ and the furious look on his face, lips set in a thin, angry line had broken through my alcoholic haze and he'd practically dragged me outside and to the car, his grip on my arm an inescapable vise. It was probably the closest he's ever come to deliberately hurting me.

My head shoots up, wrenching my neck with the quick movement when I hear a low chuckle from him. He actually smirks for a long moment before his mouth widens into a genuine smile, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

'What's so funny?' I ask with a scowl, at this point not even expecting a straightforward answer. He's been so evasive lately. And infuriating.

'Bella,' he gasps mirthfully, his entire demeanor relaxing into the closest I've seen him acting like _himself_, like the Edward I know and love, for days now.

'Stop laughing at me,' I mumble, feeling my cheeks flame miserably. He sobers but the corners of his mouth twitch and it's obvious that he's not quite done with finding some humor at my expense.

'Bella, Bella.' He gathers me in his arms, kissing me on the forehead in his usual Edward-like way. I start to relax. This is the Edward I've been missing.

'So what is it?' I smile expectantly at him.

He chuckles and shakes his head. 'Just a little jealousy,' he answers sheepishly.

I look at him, dumbfounded.

'You were jealous of your friends' so-called normalcy,' he murmurs, thoughtfully. 'While I was jealous of yours.'

And it all suddenly falls into place. 'You want to be like any other teenager so you can drink too much schnapps and throw up in a Volvo?' I tease, tracing his cheekbones, his eyebrows, his forehead.

'Don't be silly.' His lips ghost mine before pressing in harder, taking what we both want until I have to deal with the pesky need to breathe.

'Volvos didn't exist until the 20s,' he whispers with a smile in his voice before he kisses me again.


	21. Wood

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Wood  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Jasper, Bella)  
**Rating:** K+

'Ugh, why do you insist on watching this drivel?'

Edward can't stand it when I watch _Interview With the Vampire _and Jasper is apparently equally offended by my enjoyment of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_.

'Not you, too,' I groan. Alice's tinkling laughter sounds from the dining room upstairs.

'It's just - _look _at her!' Jasper takes a seat beside me and scoffs at the action onscreen. 'That high kick wouldn't do a thing against a real vampire. And what's with the stake? I don't even know where to _begin _with that…'

I tune him out. I should probably stick to _Californication_.


	22. Stagnant

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Stagnant  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Edward/Bella  
**Rating:** K+

Edward finds himself surprisingly loquacious when he talks with Bella about the end of his human life. It was his last great change before being frozen forever at 17 years of age.

'Did you know that Walt Disney was born the same year as you?' Bella asks conversationally, smiling as his fingertips travel whisper-soft over her jugular. 'And he was from Chicago, too.'

'Yes, and he had the flu, the same as I did.' He presses a lingering kiss beneath her ear.

'But he survived.' Her eyes are full of both awe and sadness.

A nod. 'He survived. I didn't.'


	23. Raindrops

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Raindrops  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** Jacob/Bella  
**Rating:** M

– and with her hair a tangled wet mess, rain soaking the white cotton of her shirt transparent, he wants nothing more than to throw caution to the wind. In seconds, he could have her beneath him in the mud

(forgetting the way he hates her for loving him the way she does)

kissing her breathless with all the need he has that's reserved for her alone. He wants to hear the way her voice would sound, her thighs over his shoulders as he took his first taste. Then the grace of her skin, slippery against his own and inside where –


	24. Touch

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Touch  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Aro, Bella)  
**Rating:** K

_How very odd_, he thinks, his hand still clasping hers in some vain hope that this small human girl's thoughts will suddenly become unlocked to him. To have such mystery at his fingertips…

Aro can't recall a time when he _hasn't _been able to learn all there is to know about a person (human, vampire, or anything in between) through even the barest hint of a touch. He's been a vampire for too many years to remember what it was like to be _less_.

Yes, he decides as he releases her hand. Isabella Swan will make a most fascinating immortal.


	25. Walls

**The Twilight Twenty-Five**  
**Prompt: **Walls  
**Pen name:** en-glace  
**Pairing:** n/a (Charlie, Bella)  
**Rating:** K

Charlie listened to the rain drive in hard blasts against the aluminum siding while trying to pretend that Bella didn't have a boy – _that _boy – in her room. He'd promised her his trust and she'd promised him an open door.

But Bella was secretive and had a knack for shutting him out; he supposed she'd earned it honestly. He wasn't exactly going to win Talkative Father of the Year.

It was uncanny the way she'd turned out so much like him in spite of the years with Renee. The thought warmed Charlie's heart. It was a fair trade after all.


End file.
